Booth's Horse Fell....

[wpbinzel]

As usual, this has been a very good discussion. The consensus appears to in favor of Booth’s account that he broke his left fibula at Ford’s Theater. Because of a lack of certainty and my firm belief that your guess is as good as mine, I have not weighed into the debate. However, for the sake of the discussion, I offer the following observations in support of the competing notion, that Booth’s horse fell, trapping his foot in the stirrup:

1. Most telling are the statements and letters of the Ford’s Theater eyewitnesses that were written within forty-eight hours after the shot was fired. They are fairly consistent that Booth landed awkwardly, but then he bounced back to his feet and “ran,” “rushed rapidly,” or “ran with lightning speed” across the stage and out the back door of the theater. I am not aware of any immediately contemporaneous report or statement of Booth limping. It’s not until some years later that “eyewitness” and second-hand accounts included verbiage suggesting that Booth limped or otherwise struggled to reach the back door of Ford’s Theater.

2. Joseph “Peanut John” Burroughs was question on April 15, 1865 and said: “I had been sitting on the carpenter bench [outside the rear of Ford’s Theater] holding the horse for three or four minutes when I heard a pistol go off in the direction of the stage. I then went up towards the door leading the horse when here comes Mr. Booth out of the door. He haloed ‘Give me that horse’; when he had one foot in the stirrup. I had hold of the bridal and Mr. Booth struck me with the butt of a knife or dagger he had drew in his hand. He struck me on the breast and knocked me down. He then kicked me.” A man with a broken left fibula two inches above the ankle, even if fueled by adrenaline, likely would have found it difficult to mount a horse and try to kick someone with his right foot as he mounted.

3. We know that Booth rented “a bay mare, 16 hands high, a small star [o]n the forehead, large black legs tail and mane” from a livery stable on C Street owned by James M. Pumphrey. David Herold visited Naylor’s Stables on E Street and rented a horse described by Naylor’s manager, John Fletcher, as “a light roan with black legs, black tail & mane.”

4. After he fled Ford’s Theater, the next person to see Booth for certain was Sergeant Silas T. Cobb, the captain of the guard at the Navy Yard Bridge. Cobb testified that Booth “was mounted on a bright bay horse, rather below medium size, dark legs, long tail and mane.” He was allowed to pass. Ten minutes later, Cobb allowed another rider “on an iron gray or roan horse, with a long tail” pass as well. The second rider was identified as David Herold.

5. By the time they reached Surratt’s tavern, Booth and Herold had changed horses. John Lloyd testified that two men on horseback, “David Herold and a man I did not know,” arrived at the tavern around 12:15 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, April 15, 1865. According to Lloyd: “Herold rode a bay horse, medium-sized, about 15 hands high, dark mane and tail; she appeared to be a tolerably smart animal. The horse the other man rode was a large horse and seemed to be a gray or roan in the night. Herold went into the bar and got a bottle of whiskey which he brought out to the other man, who remained on his horse. I asked Herold if he wanted the other carbine, when the other man spoke and said he could not carry a carbine as his leg was broke, and he wanted to find a surgeon and have it set.” The roan horse may have a gentler ride, but it questionable whether someone with a broken left leg would have voluntarily dismounted one horse in order to mount another.

6. After leaving Surratt’s tavern, their next stop was the home of Dr. Mudd. According to Mudd’s statement: “Last Saturday morning, April 15th, about four o’clock, two men called at my house and knocked very loudly. I was aroused by the noise, as it was such an unusual thing for persons to knock so loudly. I took the precaution of asking who were there before opening the door, but before doing so they told me they were two strangers on their way to Washington, that one of their horses had fallen, by which one of the men had broken his leg. On opening the door I found [a man] on a horse led by the other man, who had tied his horse to a tree nearby. I aided the man in getting off his horse and into the house, and laid him on a sofa in my parlor. He seemed to be very much injured in the back, and complained very much of it. On examination, I found there was a straight fracture of the tibia [sic] about above the ankle. My examination was quite short and I did not find the adjoining bone fractured in any way. I do not regard it a peculiarly painful or dangerous wound; there was nothing resembling a compound fracture.” If Dr. Mudd is to be believed – and that is open to discussion – Booth’s main source of discomfort was his back, which could have been injured in a fall with his horse.

7. Mudd helped Booth up a flight of stairs to a guest bedroom, set his leg, and invited Booth and Herold to rest. In the morning, Herold came down for breakfast and then returned to bed. Herold reappeared around noon, in time for lunch. Mrs. Mudd later said that she became concerned about the sick man: “As he had nothing to eat during the day, I took up to his room some cake, a couple of oranges, and some wine on a tray. I placed the tray on the table by the bed, asked him how he was feeling and if I could do anything for him. His reply was, ‘My back hurts me dreadfully. I must have hurt it when the horse fell and broke my leg.’” Perhaps Dr. Mudd and Mrs. Mudd coordinated their stories about Booth’s injured back, but toward what end?

8. Thomas Davis, a laborer at the Mudd farm, was questioned on April 29th. He said that he did not see Booth and Herold arrive, but he did see their horses. Davis described one as “a light roan horse, medium size.” “The other horse,” he said, “was a small bay mare.... [S]he was lame in her left front leg she was very lame before taken out of the stable and taken to water about 10 or 11 o’clock.”

9. While hiding in the pine thicket, Booth wanted newspapers. He likely wanted to read the “reviews” of what he considered to be his greatest performance on the stage. He was not prepared for what the papers reported. It was inconceivable to him that he was cast as a cowardly villain, who struck from behind and without warning. His letter of vindication to the editor of the National Intelligencer, left in the care of John Mathews, never appeared in print. Greatly troubled that his view of events was not reported, Booth utilized the only means available to him to make them known. He made notes in an 1864 daybook that he carried. Sitting in the damp pine thicket, cold, hungry and frustrated, on or about April 17th, Booth began to use the daybook as a “diary” to record his version of events: “[1] I walked with a firm step through a thousand of his friends, was stopped, but pushed on. [2] A Col[onel]- was at his side. [3] I shouted Sic semper before I fired. [4] In jumping broke my leg. [5] I passed all his pickets, rode sixty miles that night, with the bones of my leg tearing the flesh at every jump.” Sentence [4] is the touchstone on which the belief that Booth broke his leg at Ford’s Theater is anchored. However, sentences [1], [2], [3], and [5] all contain falsehoods, intentional or otherwise. If we know that four out of five claims are false, it certainly raises a question about the credibility of the remaining claim, [4].

As several have already said, we know that Booth had a broken fibula, but probably will never know for certain how or when he broke it. Other than Booth’s naked assertion, there is not much to support his claim that he broke his leg at Ford’s Theater. Riding at night was hazardous, especially if the riders were in a hurry. A horse’s misstep in on a rut, rock, fallen branch, root, or any number of obstacles in the dark could cause the horse to fall and roll on its side, trapping the rider’s foot in the stirrup. A broken leg just above the ankle seems to have been a common result of such an incident. To me, that seems to be more likely to have been what occurred.